People Australia

Disher, Norma Margaret, later Hawkins (1922-?) film producer and director and Communist activist 

Birth: 19 October 1922 in a private hospital at Bega, New South Wales, daughter of native-born parents Joseph Melbourne Disher (1885-1967), a coachbuilder, trade unionist and 'bit of a red  ragger', and Euphemia, née Douch (1888-1935), a seamstress. Marriage: about 1977 to Victorian-born Bruce Hedford Hawkins (1924-1998), university lecturer. Death: . 

• Member of the Communist Party of Australia from 1949 to 1956.
• A cultural activist, she was a costume designer and theatre director at the New Theatre and was also associated with the Maritime Industries Theatre.
• Most importantly, she worked with the Waterside Workers Film Unit from 1953 to 1958, directing and producing documentaries about working-class life.
• Worked at the Sydney Trade Union Club before full-time duties with film unit and WWF after 1956.
• In the 1980s, with colleagues Keith Gow and Jock Levy, she was the subject of a documentary, Filmwork, by John Hughes. 

Sources
Sixty Years of Struggle, volume 1.